Advances in the decipherment of ClassicMaya writing have made it possible toreconstruct not only isolated words and

phrases, but whole texts, some of which we can readalmost verbatim. Even when there are still manyuncertainties about individual words, the overallstructure of a text may be clear from the remain-ing evidence. In earlier papers (Hopkins andJosserand 1990; Josserand 1991, 1995; Josserandand Hopkins 1991), I have addressed the questionof overall text structure, and pointed out many ofthe rhetorical devices and language manipulationsutilized by Classic period scribes.

A standard methodology in Mayan epigraphyis the “structural method” implicit in the work ofTatiana Proskouriakoff (1960, 1963, 1964) anddescribed in detail by David Kelley (1976). Glyphic

strings are compared and contrasted in order toidentify their component parts. Substitution pat-terns within and between hieroglyphic inscriptionsestablish paradigmatic and syntagmatic relation-ships between glyphic elements. Paradigmatic rela-tionships are those that pertain between items ofthe same phonological, grammatical or lexical classthat may substitute for each other in the same orsimilar contexts (e.g., the numbers that accompanyday names form a paradigmatic class, as do the daynames themselves). Syntagmatic relationships arethose that govern the possible sequences in whichparadigmatic sets may occur (e.g., the numbersprecede the day names). The structural method iswidely employed to identify sentence-level phe-nomena, and an early breakthrough in Maya epig-raphy was the discovery that hieroglyphic texts

THE MISSING HEIR AT YAXCHILÁN:LITERARY ANALYSIS OF A MAYA HISTORICAL PUZZLE

J. Kathryn Josserand

The site of Yaxchilán (Chiapas, Mexico) is one of the best-known Classic Maya cities, despite relatively little stratigraphicexcavation. The dynastic history of the site is recorded in numerous legible inscriptions and was worked out more than 30years ago by Tatiana Proskouriakoff (1963, 1964) in her epoch-making historical interpretations. A historical puzzle leftby Proskouriakoff and later investigators is a 10-year gap (A.D. 742–752) between the death of a Late Classic king, ShieldJaguar II, and the accession of his successor and son, Bird Jaguar IV. Various explanations have been offered for this inter-regnum, often suggesting a rival heir to the throne, as Bird Jaguar was the son of his father’s late, secondary, foreign wife.Nevertheless, no evidence has been put forth concerning a child by the king and his earlier, primary wife, a woman knownas Lady Xok. This paper reexamines the epigraphic evidence by applying what is now known about Classic Maya grammarand the canons of Classic Maya literature to an inscription on the house of Lady Xok. Viewed from this perspective, a well-known inscription yields the name of the missing heir, and other evidence suggests the nature of his fate and the reason hedid not take the throne.

La historia del sitio maya clásico de Yaxchilán (Chiapas, México) se conoce más por sus numerosas inscripciones que por laspocas excavaciones que se han hecho. En los primeros estudios sobre historia basados en la epigrafía, Tatiana Proskouriakoff(1963, 1964) delineó la secuencia de gobernantes. Un enigma dejado por Proskouriakoff y otros investigadores posteriores esun período de diez años (742–752 d. C.) entre la muerte de un gobernante del Clásico Tardío, Escudo Jaguar II, y la entron-ización de su hijo y sucesor, Pájaro Jaguar IV. Se han propuesto varias explicaciones basadas en la hipótesis de un sucesorrival, ya que Pájaro Jaguar fue hijo de Escudo Jaguar y una esposa tardía, secundaria y extranjera. Sin embargo, tales hipóte-sis no han encontrado apoyo en evidencia concreta de un hijo de la esposa principal, la Señora Xok. Este trabajo vuelve aanalizar la evidencia epigráfica, aplicando los modelos recientemente desarrollados sobre la gramática de la lengua clásicamaya y los cánones de su literatura. Vista de esta perspectiva, una inscripción bien conocida rinde el nombre del sucesor per-dido, mientras otra evidencia sugiere cuál fue su destino, y por qué no asumió al poder.

J. Kathryn Josserand n Department of Anthropology, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL 32306-7772

Latin American Antiquity, 18(3), 2007, pp. XX-XXCopyright ©2007 by the Society for American Archaeology

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displayed the same basic sentence word order asmany modern Mayan languages: verb, object, sub-ject (that is, predicates normally precede their argu-ments). The establishment of this unmarked orderalso permitted recognition of the unusual, marked,word orders that are used for rhetorical effect andthat characterize peak events in Maya texts (e.g.,the fronting of Pakal’s parentage statement to aposition before the Calendar Round date and verbin the last part of the Palenque Sarcophagus Lidinscription: “the child of Kan Bahlum Mo’, thechild of Lady Zac Kuk, on 8 Ahau 13 Pop wasborn”; Josserand 1997:119).

Discourse analysis extends the structuralmethod beyond the sentence and seeks to identifythe larger components of inscriptions (roughly, theequivalents of paragraphs and chapters) and deter-mine the underlying rules of composition employedby Maya scribes (Josserand 1991). Thus, it can beshown that Classic inscriptions regularly employformal openings and closings, break their contentinto sections, each with distinct syntactic patternsthat correlate with chronological shifts and changesin topic, and mark peak events with special rhetor-ical devices (Josserand and Hopkins1991:290–348). A characteristic of Maya compo-sition within text sections (both modern and Clas-sical), especially at peak events, is the use of pairedlines or “couplets,” two sequential sentences thatdiffer in only one element: “it was the seating ofYaxkin; it was the seating of the king” (to para-phrase the last parts of the Leiden Plaque inscrip-tion; Josserand 1991:16–17). Among the canons ofMaya literary style that have been discovered bydiscourse analysis is the chiasmic structure I havecalled “nested couplets” (ABBA, ABCCBA, etc.,where the letters represent the parts of couplets).Examples of this form are found in the Creationtext of Quiriguá Stela C, east side (Hopkins 1995;see also Looper 2003:159) and in the text of Yax-chilán Lintel 23 (below).

Besides characterizing the literary style of theClassic Maya, whole text analysis, or discourseanalysis, has more practical applications. Know-ing how scribes alter language patterns for dra-matic effect enables us to understand some passageswhose meanings have otherwise remained obscure,sometimes because they lack overt references tomajor protagonists or other critical sentence ele-ments. In a previous paper (Josserand 1995), I

demonstrated “participant tracking” in hieroglyphictexts, the techniques for identifying protagonistswhose names have been deleted from key passagesfor dramatic effect. This study of the text from Lin-tel 23 at Yaxchilán returns to the applications of dis-course analysis to Classic texts, but this time withan eye to clarifying historical detail by recon-structing parts of a text that have been deleted forstylistic reasons. The specific historical problem tobe confronted is the question of the “missing heir”at Yaxchilán, the heir whose existence wouldexplain the 10-year interregnum between the deathof Shield Jaguar (Shield Jaguar I, the first Yax-chilán ruler to bear this name) and the accession ofhis son Bird Jaguar (Bird Jaguar IV).

Yaxchilán and its Dynastic History

The archaeological site of Yaxchilán (Chiapas,Mexico) is one of the best-known of the ClassicMaya sites of the Western Lowlands, despite thefact that systematic excavation has been done thereonly very recently (García Moll 1975; 1984a,1984b; García Moll and Juárez 1986; García Mollet al. 1990). The carved stone monuments providegood ethnohistorical records concerning Yax-chilán’s elite, especially for the Late Classic period(A.D. 600–900), and this epigraphic record hasbeen studied in detail, beginning in the late 1950s.Tatiana Proskouriakoff (1963, 1964) worked out thesequence of rulers in the second and third of herepoch-making articles on the historical content ofClassic Maya inscriptions, after her initial study ofthe inscriptions of Piedras Negras (Proskouriakoff1960). Students and followers of Proskouriakoffpursued this task (Mathews 1988; Schele and Frei-del 1990; Tate 1992), and there are few gaps in therecord of kings. For Early Classic kings, we have(on the lintels of Structure 12) an ordered list of thenames of the first 10 rulers, along with the namesand titles of foreign dignitaries associated with theirreigns (either as witnesses to the accessions, asSchele and Freidel 1990:264 read the inscriptions,or as captives, as Martin and Grube 2000:118–119interpret the text). Some additional information isprovided by Hieroglyphic Stair 1 (Nahm 1997).

For most of these rulers, there is little informa-tion on their lives. From the beginning of the LateClassic, the epigraphic record is much moredetailed, and includes more information about

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prominent individuals, many of whom are men-tioned on several monuments. For most Late Clas-sic rulers we have records of their birth, accession,captures, and ceremonial activities, as well as infor-mation on their ancestors, descendants, and otherkinsmen and companions. This information is com-plete enough in its presentation of names, rela-tionships, and essential deeds that scholars haveattempted detailed dramatic narrative reconstruc-tions of critical moments in Yaxchilán’s history(Martin and Grube 2000:116–137; Schele and Frei-del 1990:262–305).

Despite the richness of the epigraphic texts,there remains an unsolved mystery in the dynasticrecords of Yaxchilán. Tatiana Proskouriakoff wasthe first to note the problem, in her initial descrip-tion of the rulers of Yaxchilán:

[After the death of Shield Jaguar] Bird Jaguar,the next great ruler of Yaxchilan, did not accedeto power until 11 years had passed, and thereare no records that we can definitely ascribe to[t]his period. Perhaps, as often happens aftera long and distinguished reign, it was a timeof conflict, when various pretenders competedfor the chief’s office, and perhaps that is whyBird Jaguar, on his accession, seems to havetaken great pains to prove and document hislegitimacy [Proskouriakoff 1963:163, empha-sis in original].

Subsequent work on the inscriptions filled outthe details of the royal family. Peter Mathews(1988:216–217), in his dissertation on the sculp-ture of Yaxchilán, pointed out that Shield Jaguar’sprincipal wife was a “Lady Fist-Fish.” Linda Schelelater popularized the name “Lady Xoc” in her hiero-glyphic workshops at the University of Texas. Xocwas Thompson’s [1944, 1960:162–163] reading ofthis “fish” head glyph, and the name appears inRoys’ (1940) study of Maya personal names.Thompson believed the fish head to be a rebus forxoc “count” based on xoc “shark.” (The Maya termmay in fact be the origin of the English word“shark”; Jones 1985.) Here, I refer to the womanas “Lady Xok,” and to her patronymic as “Xok,”using a modernized spelling of her name, in accor-dance with the orthographic reforms suggested bythe Academia de las Lenguas Mayas de Guatemala,now adopted in most epigraphic literature.1

David Stuart (1987) has argued that the

Fish/Xok glyph is phonetic u; this syllable is fol-lowed by another syllable sign, ki, so that the lady’sname contains two syllable signs that spell out u-ki. Thus this part of the woman’s name (that of herpatrilineal family) may actually have been pro-nounced uk or uki. This family name occurs in twodifferent compounds in her name phrases. The vari-ants of her personal name are given in Figure 1,and can be summarized as Variant 1, “LadyCh’akan Uki,” and Variant 2, “Lady K’abal Uki”.2

The use of one or both variants seems to be stylis-tic; that is, no differential meaning can be given tothe preferential use of one versus the other. How-ever, in the present analysis, the existence of twovariants of this woman’s name is crucial to under-standing the structure of the hieroglyphic text inquestion. Outside the context of epigraphic argu-mentation, I have preferred to use the name “LadyXok” rather than “Lady Uki,” and on this pointTom Jones (1996) has presented new arguments forthis collocation to be read as xok when it is used asa name glyph.

Lady Xok’s prominence at Yaxchilán is revealedin the magnificent lintels of Structure 23, a build-ing whose inscriptions identify it as “the house ofLady Xok” (see below for a discussion of Yax-chilán’s “lady houses”). Here, Lady Xok is shownwith her husband the king (Shield Jaguar II) in thefamous “blood-letting” lintels (Lintels 24, 25, and26 of Structure 23). Despite her prominent placein the ceremonial life of her husband, Lady Xok isnot the mother of the successor. Bird Jaguar IV, whowas Shield Jaguar’s son and successor, names awoman other than Lady Xok as his mother, a for-eign woman from Calakmul: Mathews’ (1988)Lady Ik’-Skull, renamed Lady Eveningstar bySchele and Freidel (1990:262–305). As Schele andFreidel reconstruct the situation, Bird Jaguar, afterhis accession (at age 43), carried out a propagandacampaign to support his own legitimacy and thatof his son, Chel Te, who later succeeded to the Yax-chilán throne, taking his grandfather’s name, ShieldJaguar (III). To bolster his claim, Bird Jaguar pre-sented his own mother in an exalted position; manyof the monuments he erected show LadyEveningstar in the company of Bird Jaguar’s fatherShield Jaguar II, in direct imitation of earlier mon-uments that featured Shield Jaguar II and LadyXok.

Tate (1987:813, 1992:172–173) notes that on his

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Figure 1. Variants of the name “Lady Xok.” Two variants commonly occur together, in a fixed order. Variant 1 containsan undeciphered head, but appears from the substitution on Lintel 24 to read ch'a-ka-na or Ch'akan. Variant 2 is spelledphonetically (k'a)-b’a-(la) or K'ab’al. Both variants are followed by the patronymic u-ki or Uki, which is traditionallyread “Xok.” Other glyphs, including other names and titles for the same person, are included here to provide necessaryepigraphic context. Drawings by Ian Graham (Graham 1982, Graham and von Euw 1977).

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own monuments, the elder Shield Jaguar (II) neverpictured himself in the company of his Calakmulwife, Lady Eveningstar. This statement is based onan extensive, detailed analysis of architecture,iconography, and epigraphy. For instance, ShieldJaguar and Lady Eveningstar do appear togetheron Lintel 32, the central lintel of a set of three lin-tels on Structure 13, but Tate, in her review of theconstruction history of the building, notes that thedated event on Lintel 32 occurs decades before theparallel events featuring Bird Jaguar on the otherlintels, and that the costume, headdress, and ritualparaphernalia displayed by Shield Jaguar on Lin-tel 32 is anachronistic (characteristic of the reignof Bird Jaguar IV, not the earlier era). Tate(1992:172–173) concludes that “Bird Jaguar hadthis lintel carved to commemorate the real or ficti-tious presence of his mother at an important cere-mony . . . in which Lady Xoc was theco-protagonist with Shield Jaguar” (Tate 1985).This is true propaganda—the manipulation ofhistory—as alleged by Marcus (1992:xx), although,as Hopkins (1994) points out and Tate (1992)demonstrates, such revisionist history is not nec-essarily difficult to identify. Peter Mathews con-cluded that

the available evidence indicates that Bird-Jaguar IV was, at best, the son of a junior wifeof Shield Jaguar I [sic]. As such he was likelybut one of several claimants to the throne ofYaxchilán. Indeed, he may have been a veryminor claimant, and we will never know howmany rivals he probably eliminated [Mathews1988:216–217].

The presence of two women associated withone king should be interpreted in the context of theClassic Maya kinship system and Classic Mayaelite marriage patterns, as we understand them fromepigraphic and other evidence. Kinship terminol-ogy and kinship relations recorded in Classic periodinscriptions (Jones 1977:41–44; Stuart 1997) areconsistent with ethnographically recorded Mayacommunities where patrilineal lineages and/orclans dominate social organization, and whereOmaha-type kinship terminology prevails (Hop-kins 1969, 1988, 1991). Polygyny is well-attestedin such communities, and involves alliance-building sibling exchange between adjacent patri-lines, often resulting in cross-cousin marriage.

The evidence for Classic period elite polygynyis particularly strong at Yaxchilán, where bothShield Jaguar and Bird Jaguar are associated inmonumental art and inscriptions with multiplefemale ceremonial partners. These women engagein the same activities, and bear the same titles, asthose who are ultimately identified as mothers ofthe royal heirs; it is reasonable to assume they alsoare wives of the ruler. Juxtaposed scenes of theruler and his wife, the ruler and his heir, and theruler and his wife’s brother engaged in warfare-related activities (e.g., the lintels of Structures 1,33, and 54) imply that by marriage, the ruler gainedthe military support of his wife’s family (Josserand2002). Mathews (1988:216) noted that Bird Jaguardid not take office until after a number of possiblyrelated events: “Shield-Jaguar’s principal wife LadyFist-Fish died, Bird Jaguar IV’s mother Lady Ik’-Skull died and Bird-Jaguar IV married (?), and (justprior to [his] accession) a male heir was born tohim” [emphasis in the original].

The stage is thus set for intrigue. The old kingdies, there is a long period without a known ruler,and then the throne is taken by a man from a juniorline, a mature man who has already produced a sonand can ensure that the dynasty passes on throughanother generation. A monument erected duringBird Jaguar IV’s reign, Stela 12, gives the dates ofShield Jaguar II’s death and Bird Jaguar’s acces-sion, explicitly stating the time elapsed between thefather’s death and the son’s accession. An interest-ing side question, in light of the assertion that themonumental inscriptions are simply propaganda,is why Bird Jaguar would even have mentioned theinterregnum in his own political discourse.

The inscriptions at Yaxchilán thus present uswith a historical puzzle:What happened during the10 years between Shield Jaguar’s death and theaccession of Bird Jaguar, his son by a secondarywife? Analysts of this sequence of events note thatShield Jaguar’s second wife was said to be fromthe powerful site of Calakmul. Tate (1987:813–818)suggests she held the throne as regent until herdeath, after which her son, by then some 40 yearsold, took the throne. Sotelo (1992:63) favors LadyXok as regent during this period. In two parallelcases of female regency at Palenque, the regentsceded to their sons when the sons came of age(Hopkins 1988:111–115; Josserand 2002).

Irrespective of the importance of Shield Jaguar’s

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Calakmul wife, and of whether there was a femaleregent during the interregnum at Yaxchilán, a moreimportant reason why Bird Jaguar did not take thethrone earlier would be the existence of a compet-ing heir from Shield Jaguar’s primary marriage toLady Xok. Schele and Freidel have speculated onthe possible competitors of Bird Jaguar:

Bird Jaguar’s rivals would have had as legiti-mate a claim on the throne as he; it is likelythat he faced the sons and grandsons of LadyXoc and Shield-Jaguar. We cannot, of course,prove that these rivals existed, for they did notsecure the privilege of erecting monuments totell their own stories. This is one of those sit-uations in which we have only the winner’sversion of history. Nevertheless, we know thatsome set of circumstances kept the throneempty for ten long years, when a legitimateheir of sufficient age and proven competencewas available. We surmise that Bird-Jaguarneeded those ten years to defeat his would-berivals. During this long interregnum no otheraccessions appear in the record. There was noofficial king, although there may have been ade facto ruler [Schele and Freidel1990:271–272].

It is reasonable to argue that the 10-year lapsebetween Shield Jaguar’s death and Bird Jaguar’saccession implies a political conflict involving arival heir, but no one has yet put forward any directevidence that such an heir actually existed.3 How-ever, a close analysis of a lintel text from Yaxchilán,with attention to the discourse structure of theinscription, reveals a mention of this missing heirin the inscription, and this new evidence tells us justwho the rival of Bird Jaguar was, although it doesnot tell us why he did not himself come to power.

The House of Lady Xok,Shield Jaguar’s Principal Wife

The resolution of the mystery of the missing heirrequires a closer look at the texts dealing withShield Jaguar II’s principal wife, Lady Xok. LadyXok is mentioned in several Yaxchilán inscriptions;in most of them her name appears in long clausesthat include titles and usually two instances of theXok (uki) patronymic (Figure 1). Structure 23, thebuilding designated as “Lady Xok’s house” by its

hieroglyphic inscriptions, sits above the main plaza,facing the river, near the foot of the broad stairwayleading up to the “Little Acropolis” where BirdJaguar IV later built the commanding Structure 33.Near Structure 23 are several other buildings asso-ciated with women. Structure 24, at the side ofStructure 23, has three lintels with hieroglyphictexts: Lintels 27, 59, and 28 (Graham and von Euw1977:59; Graham 1982:131; Graham and von Euw1977:61, respectively). The texts record the deathdates of Lady Pakal (the mother of Shield JaguarII), of Shield Jaguar himself, of Lady Xok (ShieldJaguar’s principal wife), and of Lady Ik’Skull (thewife from Calakmul who was the mother of BirdJaguar). On the other side of the grand stairway toStructure 33 is Structure 21, where Stela 34, whichfeatures Bird Jaguar’s mother, was discovered inthe 1980s (Bassie-Sweet 1991:Figures 47–48).Across the main plaza from Structure 23, on an ele-vated mound that has its back to the river, is Struc-ture 11. The inscription on its central lintel (Lintel56; Graham 1979:121) reports a dedication eventand names the house as that of another Lady, ref-erencing Shield Jaguar as the authority at Yaxchilánunder whose auspices the dedication took place.This woman may be yet another of Shield Jaguar’swives. These “lady houses” of Yaxchilán, perhapsdower houses, are prominently located on thedowntown plaza, a reflection of the importance ofthese women to the rulers of the site.4

Structure 23 is the most intriguing and mostimportant of the lady houses for unraveling the his-torical puzzle of the Yaxchilán interregnum. Thetext on one of its lintels, Lintel 23, is especially crit-ical. Located above the door to one of the backrooms of Structure 23, this lintel was missed byMaudslay when he removed Lintels 24, 25, and 26from the front doorways of the building in the nine-teenth century.5 Lintel 23 was still unknown whenProskouriakoff (1963, 1964) did her historicalanalysis of the data from Yaxchilán. It was discov-ered by Mexican archaeologist Roberto GarcíaMoll in 1979, in the course of a project of recon-structive work on the building carried out by theInstituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia (Gar-cía Moll 1984a, 1984b). The hieroglyphic text fromthe front edge of Lintel 23 is reproduced in Figure2, along with its structural layout. Figure 3 presentsa transcription of the hieroglyphic inscriptionaccording to current understanding, a phrase-by-

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Figure 2. Hieroglyphic text of Yaxchilán Lintel 23, front edge, with structural layout and English translation. For the cor-responding Mayan text, see Figure 3. The two names of Lady Xok, the Topic of the text, are emphasized. Upper draw-ing by Ian Graham (Graham 1982:135); redrawn below for structural analysis by Kathryn Josserand.

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phrase gloss of the language of the inscription, anda free translation of the text. Since its discovery,Lintel 23 has been discussed by many scholars,including archaeologists, epigraphers, and art his-torians (Mathews 1988:171; Schele and Freidel1990:269–270; Tate 1992:276). It is argued herethat everyone has somehow managed to miss themost important historical datum this inscription

contains. In support of this argument, a review ofthe interpretations of the lintels on this building isin order.

Structure 23 sits on the uphill side of the elon-gated river-front plaza around which most of Yax-chilán’s buildings are located. Its three frontdoorways, looking out to the plaza, are capped bythe three “bloodletting” lintels, Lintels 24, 25, and

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SYNTACTIC ANALYSIS: PHRASE, SENTENCE, AND DISCOURSE STRUCTURE

(A1) Lajun Muluk, Wuklajun Wo, lik'wan u pasib yotot Na' (Ch'akan?) Uki.

Tzolkin Haab + VPO-com-ø + pos-N-suf pos-N Title Name1a [TOPIC].

Temporal Phrase + Verbal Predicate (Positional Verb) + Subject (Possessive Noun Phrase).

(On) 10 Muluc 17 Uo + was dedicated + the doorway of the house of Lady (??) Uki [Lady Xok].

(B1) Yitah Na' Pakal Uki, Na' Ajaw.

Pos-N Title Name 2 Name 2 Title Title

Non-verbal Predicate (Possessive Noun Phrase) + [Unexpressed Subject = Topic].

(Lady Xok is) the sister of Lady Pakal Uki, Lady Ajaw.

(C1) Yal Nuk Na', Ch'uj Na', Na' Xibalba.

Pos-N Title Title Title Title Name 3

Non-verbal Predicate (Possessive Noun Phrase) + [Unexpressed Subject = Topic].

(Lady Xok is) the child of Great Lady, Holy Lady, Lady Xibalba.

(C2) U nichil Wi' K'atun Kajal Aj K'an K'inal, Nun K'abal Uki, Aj Jamalib.

Pos-N-suf quant-N N-suf Title Name 4 Name 4 Name 4 Name 4 Name 4 Title

Non-verbal Predicate (Possessive Noun Phrase) + [Unexpressed Subject = Topic].

(Lady Xok is) the child of 1 K'atun Chief Aj K'an K'inal, Nun K'abal Uki, Aj

Jamalib

(B2) Yitah Na' Tajal Tun, Na' Bakab.

Pos-N Title Name 5 Name 5 Title Title

Non-verbal Predicate (Possessive Noun Phrase) + [Unexpressed Subject = Topic].

(Lady Xok is) the sister of Lady Tajal Tun, Lady Bakab.

(A2) Y(a??) Aj Tzik Na' Bal Uki.

Pos-N Name 6 + Title Name1b

Non-verbal Predicate (Possessive Noun Phrase) + Subject [TOPIC].

Lady Bal Uki [Lady Xok] (is) the mother of Aj Tzik.

Figure 3. Reading and syntactic analysis of the hieroglyphic text of Yaxchilán Lintel 23, front edge. Line 1, nested cou-plets (A1-A2, B1-B2, C1-C2) showing the chiasmic discourse structure of the text (ABCCBA); reconstructed ClassicalCholan text in bold. Line 2, phrase structure, with phrase boundaries marked by "+". Line 3, sentence structure, withsentence component boundaries marked by "+". Line 4, English translation.

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26 (from the [viewer’s] left, center, and right-handdoorways, respectively. On the front edges of thelintels of Structure 23, visible to someone about toenter the building from the plaza, are the inscrip-tions that record the dedications of the building andits parts. One such edge (Lintel 24) is missing(sawed off when Maudslay removed the lintels, itwas later lost), but the surviving edges commem-orate the dedication of the building itself (Lintel 26)and of its inscriptions (Lintel 25). In each text thebuilding is referred to as “the house of Lady Xok,”while the dedication is done “under the auspices ofShield Jaguar.”6 The dates for the events on theselintels cluster between A.D. 722 and A.D. 726,some 20 years before the end of Shield Jaguar’ssixty-year reign (A.D. 681–742). Mathews(1988:171) notes that García Moll, the archaeolo-gist who discovered Lintel 23, told him that theremains of a woman were found in Tomb 2 of Struc-ture 23, along with a number of bloodletters bear-ing the name of Lady Xok.

Although the Calendar Round dates of Lintels24–26 place the three events pictured at widelyspaced moments in time, they seem to commem-orate successive stages of three different instancesof the same ritual, since they appear to have a nar-rative structure, reading from left to right. Lintel24 shows Shield Jaguar holding a torch for LadyXok, as Lady Xok draws a thorny cord through hertongue in a Classic Maya bloodletting ritual, catch-ing the blood on papers arranged in a basket beforeher. Lintel 25 shows Lady Xok presenting theblood-soaked paper as an offering, and before herappears the “vision serpent” of Yaxchilán, fromwhose mouth emerges the head and torso of a fig-ure interpreted as an ancestor of the king, dressedas a warrior. Lintel 26 ends the sequence, showingShield Jaguar, wearing padded armor and holdinga weapon, vested for warfare. Lady Xok hands hima jaguar helmet, which he is shown wearing inanother Yaxchilán monument, Lintel 4 (Grahamand von Euw 1977:19). Schele and Freidel(1990:266–271) interpret this three-lintel sequenceas showing Lady Xok serving her lord as interces-sor with the ancestors, in support of his activitiesin war. Such military support seems to have beenan important part of the marriage alliance system;the sets of lintels from several Yaxchilán buildingssuggest that by marriage the ruler gets not only awife, but the support of her brothers and family in

military affairs (e.g., the lintels of Structures 1, 20,33, and 54; Josserand 2002). The conjured warriormay thus be one of Lady Xok’s ancestors ratherthan an ancestor of her husband (and because ofthe patterns of wife exchange between lineages, itmay be an ancestor common to both of them).

Around the corner from the front of Structure23, opening into the back section of the house, isanother doorway, this one capped by Lintel 23 (Fig-ure 2; Figure 3). Lintel 23 has no beautiful carvedimage but is all text, beginning with the edge andreading on to the flat under-surface, or face. Theface text connects two building dedication eventswith an anniversary of Shield Jaguar’s accession tothe throne, and again expresses that Lady Xok isthe “owner” of Structure 23. The edge text, whichcontains the critical historical information, relatesa single event, the dedication of “u pasib’ yototLady Xok,” that is, “the doorway of (u-pasib’) thehouse of (y-otot) Lady Xok.”7 The beauty of thetext lies in the structure of the statements that fol-low, which give a series of family relationships—that is, this is a presentation of Lady Xok’sdistinguished pedigree.

There is little controversy over the interpreta-tion of most of the individual glyphic pieces of thistext, except for the final passage. The differentpieces of the text have been put together in radi-cally different ways, however, with great differ-ences in the historical interpretation of theinformation recorded. Peter Mathews (1988:171)noted only that Lintel 23 records a “house event”that “seems to concern Shield Jaguar I’s mother,Lady Pakal (C2b), whose parentage is given, andLady Fist-Fish (K2-L2).” A more detailed inter-pretation of the edge text was made by Schele andFreidel (1990:269–270), who reconstruct from thedata an extensive genealogy for Lady Xok. Theirreading of the text leads them to conclude that“Lady Xoc was the daughter of Shield Jaguar’smother’s father’s sister...the maternal first cousinof his mother, and his own maternal first cousinonce removed” (Schele and Freidel 1990:270).Schele and Freidel’s interpretation has gone with-out challenge, and later authors have followed theirlead. Carolyn Tate, in her discussion of Lintel 23,repeats the Schele-Freidel interpretation, althoughshe adds: “The genealogy recorded on this lintel isvery convoluted and not well understood” (Tate1992:276).

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I disagree with the interpretation of the inscrip-tion that led to Schele and Freidel’s statement ofLady Xok’s genealogy.8 Since a correct reading ofthe Lintel 23 edge text is essential to unraveling themystery of the missing heir, an explanation of whymy interpretation differs from that of Schele andFreidel (and from that of Mathews as well) is inorder.

Previous Analyses of the Lintel 23 Edge Text

The text of Lintel 23 (edge) opens, as is typical ofYaxchilán lintels, with only a Calendar Round date,10 Muluc 17 Uo (9.14.12.8.9, or March 20, A.D.714).9 The only event in the text (at A2) is a knowndedication expression (marked as a positional verbwith the verbal suffix -wan). Similar dedicationphrases for the building itself and for its individuallintels are found on the other lintels of the build-ing. On Lintel 23, the subject of this verb is the door-way itself, u pasib’ yotot na’ uki, “the doorway ofthe house of Lady Xok,” so the sentence reads: “On10 Muluc 17 Uo, the doorway of the house of LadyXok was dedicated.”

Following the opening dedication statement(Figures 2 and 3, A1-D1), there are five phrases(C2-D2, E1-E2, F2-J1, I2-K1, and L1-L2). Thereading of the first four of these phrases is non-controversial (the long name and title phrases aresimplified here for clarity’s sake):• the “sibling” of Lady Pakal Xok (C2-D2)• the child of Lady Xibalba (E1-E2)• the child of Lord Aj K’an Xok (F2-J1)• the “sibling” of Lady Tajal Tun, Lady Bakab (I2-

K1).Each of these phrases is a “possessed noun

phrase” where the possessed nouns (the kin termsgiven here) are preceded by the third person pro-noun (u- or, before vowels, y-), and followed by thename of the possessor (the equivalent of “LadyPakal Xok’s sibling,” etc.). The full sentence, a pos-sessive clause, would normally include a preced-ing or following name representing the subject ofthe clause, the person who holds the relationshipmentioned in the first phrase, e.g., “Lady Xok / (is)Lady Pakal Xok’s sibling” or, in normal Maya wordorder, “(is) Lady Pakal Xok’s sibling / Lady Xok.”But in the context of extended discourse, it is notunusual to omit the subject if it is the current topicof discussion (that is, if the topic has been clearly

stated in a preceding clause).The hieroglyphic terms for the relationships

stated in the Lintel 23 edge text include (1) y-itaj,the possessed form of itaj, which is glossed “sib-ling” (Stuart 1997), and (2) the usual terms for chil-dren: al “child (of woman)” and ajaw or nich “child(of male).” The “sibling” term appears to refer tosame-generation members of the same clan, i.e.,classificatory siblings, including siblings and patri-lineal parallel cousins.10 Ethnographic support forthis interpretation is found in Wisdom (1940), theonly source to discuss a clearly cognate term(although modern Chol has the suggestive ijti’an“sister”; Aulie and Aulie 1978:59). The kinshipsystem and terminology are treated here as Omaha,as analyzed by Hopkins (1988, 1991). I believe theethnographic and ethnohistorical evidence for cor-porate, nonlocalized, unilineal descent groups in theMaya Lowlands (Eggan 1934; Haviland 1968;Nutini 1961; Villa Rojas 1947) motivates a modelof Classic period patrilineal clans, and I find sucha model to have considerable explanatory powerwhen applied to Classic period elite affairs, asreported in the hieroglyphic corpus. Using anOmaha kinship terminology, Lady Xok might referto all the women of her father’s clan as her itaj “sib-lings” or “clan sisters,” regardless of their genera-tion. Thus the Lady Pakal Xok who was the wifeof Lady Xok’s father-in-law (the old king BirdJaguar III) and who was the mother of Lady Xok’shusband (Shield Jaguar II) does not have to be LadyXok’s own full sister, but she is, as her full namephrase indicates, a member of the Xok clan. Forfather and son to marry women from the same clanwould be consistent with the attested marriage pat-terns of Maya societies employing Omaha kinshipterminology (Hopkins 1969, 1988:102).

The last phrase of the Lintel 23 text is subjectto differing interpretations, but it is critical. Math-ews (1988:171) noted that it seemed to name LadyXok (his Lady Fist-Fish), and Schele and Freidel(1990:269–270) agree. Since the decipherment ofthe glyph at L1 is “mother of” (Mathews 1980), itis clear that the phrase begins with “mother of” andends with Lady Xok’s name.11 What is in between,the glyph at K2a, is the controversial part. Scheleand Freidel take this glyph to be part of Lady Xok’stitles, and treat the phrase in effect as “mother ofAj-TITLE Lady Xok.”12 Tate (1992:276) simplyskips over the glyph at K2a and likewise reads this

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phrase “the mother of Na K’abal Xoc.” An alter-native to these readings is presented below.

A second point of contention is over how thesephrases are strung together to make sense. Scheleand Freidel (1990: Figure 7:4) take them to be along chain of relationships that fit together as fol-lows (filling in the implied but deleted subjects inbrackets):

The doorway of the house of Lady (Te-) Xokwas dedicated;• [Lady Te-Xok is] the sibling of Lady Pakal;• [Lady Pakal is] the child of Lady Xibalba;• [Lady Pakal is] the child of Lord Aj K’an Xok;• [Lord Aj K’an Xok is] the sibling of Lady Tajal

Tun;• [Lady Tajal Tun is] the mother of (Aj-TITLE)

Lady Xok.With this interpretation, Schele and Freidel were

forced to posit two different Lady Xoks, one men-tioned at the first of the text (whose name they readas Lady Te-Xok), the other at the end (Aj-TITLELady Xok). Furthermore, they argue that it is thelast-mentioned Lady Xok who is the wife of ShieldJaguar (1990:Figure 7:4). If that were the case, thelintel text would state that this is the house of theother Lady Xok, their Lady Te-Xok, who in theiranalysis is Shield Jaguar’s mother’s cousin. Sowhose house is this, anyway? Is Shield Jaguarshown with a cousin, or with his wife? Schele andFreidel’s interpretation is clearly problematic.Tate’s glossing of the lintel text reflects Schele andFreidel’s analysis, although she is ambiguous aboutwhose parentage statement is being recorded:

On 10 Muluc 17 Uo (A1-B1) was dedicated UPasil (A2-B2), House of Lady Xoc (C1-D1),the sibling of Lady Pacal [Xoc?] (C2-D2). Shewas child of the mother Lady Xibalba (E1-E2)and child of the father the 1 Katun, the Sec-ondary Lord Aj K’an Nun K’abal Xoc (F2-J1),who was the sibling of Lady Ta Hal Tun Bacab(I-K1), who was the mother of Na K’abal Xoc(L1-L2) [Tate 1992:276].

A New Analysis of Lintel 23

What is missing from the preceding interpretationsof the Lintel 23 edge text is an understanding ofhow the Classic Maya structured their texts. If wetake into account the basic rules of composition that

can be discerned from the discourse analysis oftexts across the Maya region and throughout theClassic period (Hopkins and Josserand 1990;Josserand 1991, 1995; Josserand and Hopkins1991), we can make a quite different analysis ofwhat is being said on this lintel. The statementsmade in the four phrases that occupy glyph blocksC2-K1 concern the kinship relations of an unnamedsubject. The possessed noun phrases (“the siblingof Lady Pakal,” etc.) play the role of sentence pred-icate, the equivalent of a verb phrase, and imply asentence subject or argument, a noun phrase (here,understood but unstated). Thus C2-D2 “the siblingof Lady Pakal” implies an unstated subject: “thesibling of Lady Pakal is So-and-so” (or, in normalEnglish word order, “So-and-so is the sibling ofLady Pakal”).

By the rules of Classic Mayan discourse, theopening sentence of Lintel 23 establishes LadyXok—the first person named and the possessor ofthe house whose doorway is being dedicated—asthe protagonist of the text. As the understood top-ical subject of the text, the name of Lady Xok canbe deleted (not mentioned) in following clauses,leaving sentences with a grammatical subjectimplied by the structure of the phrases, but notovertly stated (Josserand 1995). Therefore, state-ments made in the Lintel 23 text that do not havean expressed subject are understood to have LadyXok as their subject. Given the deletion rules ofClassic Maya grammar and the discourse conven-tions of Classic Maya texts, the unstated subject ofthis series of relationship statements has to be LadyXok, the topical subject, i.e., the protagonist of thetext, introduced in the first sentence. What we havehere, then, is a series of parallel statements that arebeing made about the same person, not about aseries of people.

By the same rules of Maya discourse, the pro-tagonist’s name should be stated again at or nearthe peak event of the text, and/or in a closing state-ment. In the last segment of the text, L1-L2, thesubject of the sentence is not deleted, and the pro-tagonist’s name, Lady Xok, appears as the statedsubject of the last possessive phrase. The relation-ship glyph at L1 has the meaning “the mother of”;as in other occurrences, this relationship glyph isfollowed by the name of the child.13 Therefore, itis consistent with the reading of other inscriptions,and consistent with the evidence internal to this text,

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to read the final statement of Lintel 23 as, “themother of So-and-so is Lady Xok,” that is, “LadyXok is the mother of So-and-so.” The glyph at K2ais to be read as another person’s name (the “So-and-so” in question), and not as part of Lady Xok’stitles. I have suggested for this previously unsus-pected person the nickname “Aj Tzik” (“LordCount”), because of the superfix Aj “Lord” and thebar-dot numbers in the cartouche that constituteshis name (Chol tzik “number”).

With this new information, we can give a morecomplete glossing of Lintel 23, presenting the textin a format that reflects its literary structure (withunexpressed but understood elements in brackets):

On 10 Muluc 17 Uo was dedicated the doorwayof the house of Lady Xok:• the sibling of Lady Pakal Xok [was Lady Xok];• the child of Great Lady Xibalba [was Lady

Xok];• the child of Lord Aj K’an Xok [was Lady Xok];• the sibling of Lady Tajal Tun, Bakab [was Lady

Xok];• the mother of Aj Tzik [was] Lady Xok.

If the term yitaj, glossed “sibling,” is interpretedas “clan sister,” i.e., female member of the samepatrilineal clan, as seems to be indicated by the cog-nates of the Classic Maya term used in the text, amore reasonable genealogy can now be recon-structed (Figure 4). Lady Xok was the classifica-

tory/clan “sister” of Lady Pakal Xok, whom weknow from other sources to be the wife of the pre-ceding king, Bird Jaguar III, Shield Jaguar II’sfather (Schele and Freidel 1990:269). Lady Xok’sown parents were Lady Xibalba and Lord Aj K’anXok. Lady Xok had another important “sister,”Lady Tajal Tun, who held the title of Bakab. And,finally, Lady Xok was the mother of the personwhose name appears at K2a, here nicknamed AjTzik. This interpretation has at least two advantagesover that of Schele and Freidel:

1. It reduces the genealogy to a reasonable state-ment; Lady Xok is just pointing out that the womenof her family marry well. She is wife to the currentking, Shield Jaguar; one of her “sisters” was wifeto the preceding king, Bird Jaguar III; another “sis-ter” is married to an unnamed Bakab. Indirectly, italso gives her son a distinguished pedigree.

2. It reveals the elegant structure of nested cou-plets that is the hallmark of the well-formed Clas-sic Maya text. If we consider the opening andclosing statements to be Type A, statements aboutsiblings to be Type B, and statements about chil-dren to be Type C, then the lines of the text formthe chiasmic pattern ABCCBA: opening, sibling,child, child, sibling, closing. The four centralgenealogical statements are nested between the ini-tial and final statements about the protagonist: “[thisis] the house of Lady Xok” and “Lady Xok is the

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Figure 4. Genealogy of Lady Xok according to the text of Yaxchilán Lintel 23 and other texts (the relationship of theJaguar men to the Xok women is not stated on the edge text of Lintel 23, but is known from other monuments).

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mother of Aj Tzik,” confirming that the entire texthas a single protagonist, Lady Xok.

Thus, a proper analysis of the Lintel 23 edge textreveals solid, direct evidence of the missing heir.Lady Xok, the principal and favored wife of ShieldJaguar, had a son, who would have been a leadingcontender for the throne. His existence is a rea-sonable explanation for the 10-year lapse betweenShield Jaguar II’s death and the accession of BirdJaguar IV, a son by a secondary wife. At the timeof the dedication of Lintel 23, near the middle ofShield Jaguar’s reign, Lady Xok’s son was proba-bly the heir apparent, and as such was worthy ofthe teknonymic reference to Lady Xok as “motherof Aj Tzik.”

The Missing Heir

Now that the existence of a rival to Bird Jaguar hasbeen established, the question becomes:What hap-pened to the rightful heir of Shield Jaguar, his sonby his principal wife? Why did “Aj Tzik” not fol-low Shield Jaguar on the throne of Yaxchilán?While there is still no definitive solution to this partof the puzzle, a possible explanation is suggestedby internal evidence from Yaxchilán, and by evi-dence from other sites.

Battle scenes and depictions of the taking ofcaptives are common motifs in Classic Maya art,especially in the Western Lowlands, around theUsumacinta River and its tributaries, the Lacanjá,the Lacantún, the Jataté, and the Pasión (includingthe Petexbatún region). This area encompasses thesites of Piedras Negras,Yaxchilán, Bonampak,Ton-iná, and Dos Pilas, all of which prominently dis-play images of captives in their monumental art. Itwas the practice at Yaxchilán for the rulers to taketitles based on captures made early in their careers.The older Bird Jaguar (III) took the title “Captorof Chak-la-te,Aj 8-Tun” (e.g., Stela 8, C7-C8). Hisson Shield Jaguar (II) styled himself “Captor of AjNik” (e.g., Step III, Hieroglyphic Stairway 3, C5).Bird Jaguar (IV) took the title “Captor of Aj Uk”(e.g., Stela 12, C4). It is reasonable to speculate thatLady Xok’s son, in order to consolidate his posi-tion as successor at Yaxchilán, was expected to goout and secure for himself a distinguished captive.

In the dynastic history of the site of Dos Pilas(Houston 1993; Houston and Mathews 1985),Ruler 4 of Dos Pilas records a number of impor-

tant captives taken from other sites, in what mayhave been a single campaign, “in which a raidingparty systematically worried the area north of thePasión River” (Houston 1993:117). The captivesmentioned include a person from Yaxchilán (Fig.5, Hieroglyphic Stairway 3, Step II; from Houston1993:117, 119, Fig. 4-23). As Houston notes(1993:117), “this lord may have been taken duringor perhaps slightly before the interregnum betweenthe death of Shield Jaguar and the accession of BirdJaguar IV (Mathews and Willey 1991:62–63). Pos-sibly, the capture occasioned the interregnum.”

The step depicting the capture of the Yaxchilánlord also records the event in hieroglyphics (Fig-ure 5,A1-B3). The date (B1b-A2) is eroded; Hous-ton places the event in time by reference to thesurrounding inscriptions. The “capture” eventglyph (B2) is clear; it is followed by a name (A3),and this in turn is followed by a title “Yaxchilánajaw” (B3; the prefixed “God C” or ch’uh “holy”that marks the Emblem Glyph of a sitting king ismissing). The name, however, has not been identi-fied with the name of any lord of Yaxchilán, andconsequently, while Houston suggests this capturemight be related to the interregnum, no specificpersonal identification has been made. The draw-ing of Step II published by Houston (1993, Figure4-23) allows an interesting speculation. The nameof the captive (at A3), mostly destroyed but par-tially visible, includes an Imix glyph or phoneticb’a (A3a, lower element), and an animal head withsubfixed ki. Both of these glyphic elements occurin variants of Lady Xok’s name—e.g., the b’a inna’b’a-l(a) and the ki in u-ki.

Roys’ (1940) study of Maya personal names(summarized by Tozzer 1941:99) showed thatchildren—daughters as well as sons—inheritedtheir fathers’ names (e.g., Lady Xok, the daughterof Aj K’an Xok). A person also had a number ofother names; besides the patronymic, inherited inthe male line, there was a naal or maternal namecoming through the mother, a paal-k’aba or boy-name preceding the family name, a koko-k’aba, ajesting name or nickname, and often a title to indi-cate rank. Prisoners may have been denied theirpatronymic, even when they are shown with theirtitles. Tozzer notes (1941:63) that the slave classof Maya society “was made up usually of personstaken captive in war, those seized for theft, andorphans.” Roys (1940) discusses the names given

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to male slaves, and remarks that they correspondedeither to the boy-names or the naal names offreemen.

If slaves, including war captives, were oftenknown by their naal names, i.e., the mother’s fam-ily name, then the son of Lady Xok, taken captiveby Dos Pilas, might bear the naal name of Xok, aswell as the royal emblem glyph of Yaxchilán. Thiswould be interesting support for the proposal thatthe captive portrayed on the Dos Pilas step couldbe our missing heir from Yaxchilán. Unfortunately,it is impossible to confirm this hypothesis. StephenHouston and Ian Graham have made available tothe author the best drawings and photographs ofthe step in question, and in these, although the ani-mal head has a ki suffix, the damaged upper partsof the head variant do not clearly display the diag-nostic features of the XOK head (see especially fea-tures of the forehead and the back of the lowerjaw). Houston, who has drawn the monument,believes the glyph may be a version of Chak(CHAKki) (personal communication, June, 1996).Given the variability of representation of personalname glyphs, the identification of this damagedglyph as XOK is not absolutely out of the question,but the step has now been looted from the site andis no longer available for study (although the righthalf of the step was found by Arthur Demarest in1981; Stephen Houston, personal communication,June, 1996).

Thus, it may not be possible to resolve com-pletely the puzzle of the missing heir at Yaxchilán,in part because of the ambiguous name glyph ofthe prisoner at Dos Pilas. But it is possible to givea better answer to the question raised by the 10-

year interregnum between Shield Jaguar II and hissuccessor Bird Jaguar IV. Empirical evidence indi-cates that Shield Jaguar, ruler of Yaxchilán, had ason by his principal wife, Lady Xok. An inscrip-tion on one of her buildings, executed during ShieldJaguar’s reign, records the fact that she was themother of such a child. This son, here nicknamedAj Tzik, should have been the leading contenderfor the throne. Whatever happened to him, his mereexistence is enough to help explain the 10-yearinterregnum that separates his father’s reign fromthat of his half-brother. He may or may not be theprisoner depicted on the Dos Pilas hieroglyphicstair. If not, we may well find that his name showsup somewhere else along the Usumacinta, whereexcavations are continuing to add to the historicalrecord of the western Maya realm.

Apart from the specific issue of the history ofYaxchilán rulers, this study has broader implica-tions for the interpretation of inscriptional data onthe Classic Maya. The Maya did not record theirhistory in tabular form, simply listing rulers orevents in chronological order. Their history is nar-rated in literary forms whose interpretation requiresan appreciation of the canons of Classic Maya lit-erature (Josserand and Hopkins 1991). Fortunately,the corpus of inscriptions is large enough, and var-ied enough, so that such canons can be identified(Hopkins and Josserand 1990; Josserand 1991,1995).

Operating with an understanding of literarynorms, we can extract the historical evidence fromtexts with greater confidence. Since the rhetoricaldevices utilized signal which events of a text arethe principal ones, to which events and persons

14 LATIN AMERICAN ANTIQUITY [Vol. 18, No. 3, 2007]

Figure 5. A possible portrait of Aj Tzik: Dos Pilas Hieroglyphic Stair 3, Step II. B2, “was captured;” A3, name of the pris-oner; B3, Emblem Glyph, “Yaxchilán ajaw.” Drawing by Stephen D. Houston (Houston 1993:119, Fig. 4-23).

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attention is to be called, and to which aspects ofthose persons and events we are asked to attend,we can make more effective use of the informationprovided—when we understand these literarycanons.

The lesson for those who would interpret thesemonuments should be clear: historical statements,like other cultural artifacts, must first be under-stood in the contexts in which they occur, and theymust be interpreted with reference to the culturalinstitutions that shape them. The medium is part ofthe message, and the message must be interpretedin terms of the literary tradition within which it wascomposed.

Acknowledgments.14 An earlier version of this paper was pre-sented at the 3rd Annual Maya Symposium, BrevardCommunity College, Cocoa, Florida, January 18–22, 1994,under the title “The Missing Heir at Yaxchilán: A MayaHistorical Puzzle Resolved.” Following the Cocoa meeting,a brief note on the contents of the paper was published in thenewsletter of the Pre-Columbian Art Research Institute, SanFrancisco. I would like to thank my husband, Nicholas A.Hopkins, for extended discussions about the ideas presentedin this article, and for help in preparing the manuscript. I alsowould like to thank John Harris, who helped me see the log-ical conclusions of my syntactic analysis of the YaxchilánLintel 23 text. Thanks also to the people who read and com-mented on this manuscript: Mary Pohl, Karen Bassie-Sweet,Laura von Broekhoven, and four anonymous reviewers; ithas profited from their comments. Thanks are also due toMartha Macri for her help with the transcription of the text.The material presented in this article is based, in part, onresearch supported by the National Endowment for theHumanities, Grant RT-20643-86, and by the NationalScience Foundation, Grant BNS 8520749. Any opinions,findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in thispublication are those of the author and do not necessarilyreflect the views of the National Endowment for theHumanities or the National Science Foundation.

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Notes

1. For these conventions, see England and Elliott (1990).Other names such as Pakal (formerly Pacal) and titles likeBakab (formerly Bacab) follow the same norms. Becauseepigraphers regularly change the details of their readings ofpersonal names, I have continued to use the names by whichthe protagonists first became known to the epigraphic publicrather than choosing between the most recent revisions. Sincethese personal names and titles are in common use in epi-graphic literature, I have not treated them as foreign termsrequiring italics. Otherwise in hieroglyphic inscriptions, pho-netic and logographic readings generally follow currentnorms (Montgomery 2002; Macri and Looper 2003). Martinand Grube (2000) list alternative readings of royal namesalong with their most recent interpretations; at Yaxchilán, theBird Jaguars (I–IV) continue under that name; the ShieldJaguars are now Itzamnaaj B’alam (I–III); Bird Jaguar IV’swife and the mother of Shield Jaguar II, Lady Pakal, is stillLady Pakal (although some epigraphers would call her LadyJanab’); Lady Xok is Lady K’ab’al Xook. Epigraphers willnote that I do not employ some commonly accepted readings,e.g., the title Sajal, a lesser lord, a term for which I find nosupport in Mayan languages, and prefer to read Kajal, basedon kaj “village,” i.e., “village chieftain,” an interpretationsupported by some head variants utilizing a personifiedCABAN (phonetic ka) glyph.

2. Although there is great variation in the other elementsthat occur in these name phrases, these two names occur in afixed order, and I have labeled them Variant 1 and Variant 2 toreflect that order. Variant 1 includes a head variant associatedwith sacrifice, or an axe over CABAN (this day-sign glyph,outside its cartouche, reads ka) and na. This compound mightbe read ch’ak or ch’akan. Variant 2 begins with a b’a syllablesign, sometimes conflated with the k’a fist and another suffix,to give b’al or k’ab’al. Both variants are followed immedi-ately by u-ki (Xok). However these compounds are read,Lady Xok’s inscriptions regularly use a long name phrasewith two Xok (u-ki) components.

3. Martin and Grube (2000:127), interpreting an admit-tedly difficult passage of quoted speech inscribed on PiedrasNegras Panel 3, note that in the speech an otherwise unknownperson (Yoaat B’alam II, the namesake of the earliest knownYaxchilán ruler) is identified as a Yaxchilán king in a timeframe that fits into the interregnum. However, the event pic-tured took place some 50 years before the panel was created,and the historical accuracy of the quotation may be ques-tioned.

4. Similar “lady houses” are known from other sites (e.g.,at Tikal; Haviland 1981). Almost all major sites include atleast some references to women in their inscriptions and in

the accompanying images, on stelae and wall panels as wellas on house lintels (Josserand 2002). The prominence ofwomen’s houses at Yaxchilán may simply reflect the highproportion of Yaxchilán’s inscriptions that occur on stone lin-tels as opposed to perishable media, e.g., wooden lintels.

5. Two of these lintels, Lintels 24 and 25, went to theBritish Museum. They have recently been put on public dis-play in the new Mexican Gallery. The other of the front lin-tels, Lintel 26, is on display in the Maya room of the MuseoNacional de Antropología in Mexico City. Lintel 23 has beenremoved from Structure 23 at Yaxchilán for later display in anew site museum, but an excellent copy has been reset overthe back doorway of the building.

6. Both glyphic phrases are possessive constructions. Thefirst reads yotot na’ uki, literally “the house of Na’ Uki [LadyXok].” Compare modern Chol yotot Mateo “the house ofMateo.” The second phrase, u-kaj [Shield Jaguar], is “theaffair or responsibility of [Shield Jaguar],” often glossed“under the auspices of [Shield Jaguar].” Compare modernChol ti kaj a mul “because of [ti kaj] your misdeed [a mul]”(Aulie and Aulie 1978:36). However this phrase u kaj is trans-lated, its implication is that the dedication of the doorway (aswell as the other monuments) of Lady Xok’s house was doneby, for, or under the authority of the ruler, Shield Jaguar.

7. Epigraphers have generally read the latter term as pasil“doorway” (Schele and Freidel 1990:269–270). I know of noattestation of this term, but pasib’ is a well-formed instru-mental noun derived from the intransitive verb root pas “toexit, to come out,” i.e., “place where one comes out” or“doorway.” Aulie and Aulie 1978:92 note pasel “(for the sun)to come out”, and pasib’ k’in “east,” literally, “place wherethe sun comes out.” I suspect the suffix on B2 is b’(a) ratherthan l(i).

8. I disagree as well with their interpretation of whatmaternal cousins are. If Lady Xok is “the daughter of ShieldJaguar’s mother’s father’s sister” (Shield Jaguar’sMoFaSiDa), she is not the “maternal first cousin of hismother,” but the paternal first cousin of his mother (ShieldJaguar’s mother’s FaSiDa).

9. Gregorian equivalents of Maya dates used here werecalculated by the program Maya Calendrics (Harris andHarris 1990), version 2.01.01, using Julian day number584285 as the equivalent of the Classic Long Count date of13.0.0.0.0, August 13, 3114 B.C.

10. The Classic term itaj may in fact have a moreextended range of meaning outside strict kinship, as it isoccasionally used to express a relationship between humansand nonhumans or supernaturals.

11. No phonetic reading has been proposed for the glyphat L1. Mathews (1980:61) proposed it be glossed “mother of”but was unable to prove this meaning in the context of theBonampak stelae, since he had no independent evidence thatthe persons whose relationship was described with this glyphwere in fact mother and son. But other data confirm the trans-lation “mother,” since the term is the reciprocal for “child offemale.” On Yaxchilán Stela 34 (Bassie-Sweet 1991: Figure48), for instance, the description of Lady Eveningstar asmother of Bird Jaguar uses this glyph, and on Stela 11(Schele and Freidel 1990: Figure 7:8), Bird Jaguar isdescribed as the child of Lady Eveningstar.

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12. In a personal communication (1994), Linda Scheleargued (unconvincingly, in my opinion) that there are otherinstances of aj in female names and titles; she was unable toproduce examples. There are, however, female title phrasesthat have sequences of na’ “Lady” followed by aj as part of aspecific title. One such is the title read na’ aj k’uhun, “LadyAj-k’uhun,” taken by Lady Eveningstar on Yaxchilán Stela34, front (Bassie-Sweet 1991: Figure 47, last glyph). Weinterpret this title as “wife of the aj k’uhun,” parallel tophrases like “Lady Bakab.” Incidentally, Lady Eveningstar’stitle appears to include the aj-k’uhun title discussed byJackson and Stuart (2001), who suggest it might mean “care-taker.” A corresponding term in modern Tila Chol, aj ch’u-jwañaj, refers to the principal cargo holders, the caretakers ofthe saints, and was translated into Colonial Spanish as may-ordomo, a military term meaning “quartermaster” (Josserandand Hopkins 2005:411–412)

13. In most if not all Mayan languages, grammatical pos-session is indicated by prefixed possessive pronouns, e.g.,Chol k- ~ j- “my,” a(w)- “your,” i- ~ y- “his, her, its; their,”lak- “our,” la’ “y’all’s” (with context-sensitive variants): k-na’ “my mother,” a-tat “your father,” i-nichim “its flower,” y-otot “his/her/its house.” The specification of the possessorfollows: i-nichim jini te’ “the flower of the tree,” y-otot jiniwinik “the house of the man” (parallel to yotot Na’ Uki “the

house of Lady Xok”). As noun phrases, these possessivephrases may serve as the subjects of sentences or as non-verbal predicates (predicate nominatives). The normal orderof phrases in a sentence in Cholan and most Mayan languagesis Predicate-Subject, or Verb-(Object)-Subject: Chol mi’ch’äch’ / ja’ / jini lum “the earth absorbs the water,” literally“absorbs / water / the earth” (VOS order). Rhetorical focus oremphasis is expressed by fronting a sentence element, usuallythe subject: jini lum, mi’ ch’äch’ ja’ “that earth, it absorbswater.” Non-verbal predicates (such as predicate nominativesand predicate adjectives) have similar syntax: i’ik’ax panumil“very dark (is) the Earth,” motolob’ i-yotot “joined (are) theirhouses.” Thus, the equivalent of the English sentence “LadyXok is the mother of Aj Tzik” would be i-na’ Aj Tzik / Na’Uki, Predicate / Subject, “(is) the mother of Aj Tzik / LadyXok.”

14. Kathryn Josserand was struck down by a fatal cerebralhemorrhage as she was finishing up a field season inPalenque, Chiapas, on July 18, 2006. At that time this manu-script had been accepted for publication but was awaitingfinal corrections. As her research partner and coauthor fornearly 40 years, I undertook the task of making those finalchanges with confidence that she would not have objected—in fact she probably would have asked me to do this anyway.Nicholas A. Hopkins.

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